Bourdais heads final practice
Final practice for the Grand Prix of Cleveland gave no-one any respite from the feeling that Sebastien Bourdais has pole position bought and paid for
The Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing driver clocked a lap of 56.415 seconds (134.390 mph) to top the time sheets by 0.575 seconds, ahead of Will Power. The reigning champion was around half a second faster on three other laps as well.
Power and Team Australia teammate Simon Pagenaud were second and fourth fastest, split by Justin Wilson who ended the session spun and stalled after being over-brave through the final turn.
The RSPORTS pilot had also had a nasty moment earlier in the session when he punctured a right-rear tyre running over the towing pin that had dropped from one of the Safety Team trucks as it pull-started a stalled car. So hard did he have to brake to pull his car under control, he also punctured the front-left.
The closest the Cleveland crowd have to a local hero - Graham Rahal of Columbus, about 150 miles away - was fifth fastest in the second Newman/Haas/Lanigan car, albeit some three quarters of a second away from his teammate.
Robert Doornbos showed some improvement for the Minardi USA squad with sixth, ahead of the two Forsythe Championship Racing cars. Both Paul Tracy and Oriol Servia ran a considerable number of laps on the softer red compound, with which they struggled with in yesterday's first qualifying session.
Jan Heylen will be hoping his tenth place - 1.1 seconds from Bourdais - is representative of what he can achieve in qualifying, as he put the Conquest Racing machine ahead of Dan Clarke and both PKV Racing cars.
Clarke produced the most dramatic moment of the session when he spun exiting Turn 4 at high speed, and with barely a loss of momentum, masterfully recovered to carry on around to the pits.
Pos Driver Team Time 1. Sebastien Bourdais Newman/Haas/Lanigan 56.415 2. Will Power Team Australia 56.989 + 0.574 3. Justin Wilson RSPORTS 57.135 + 0.720 4. Simon Pagenaud Team Australia 57.144 + 0.729 5. Graham Rahal Newman/Haas/Lanigan 57.190 + 0.775 6. Robert Doornbos Minardi Team USA 57.215 + 0.800 7. Oriol Servia Forsythe Championship 57.358 + 0.943 8. Paul Tracy Forsythe Championship 57.368 + 0.953 9. Alex Tagliani RSPORTS 57.409 + 0.994 10. Jan Heylen Conquest Racing 57.497 + 1.082 11. Dan Clarke Minardi Team USA 57.558 + 1.143 12. Ryan Dalziel Pacific Coast Motorsports 57.803 + 1.388 13. Tristan Gommendy PKV Racing 57.833 + 1.418 14. Neel Jani PKV Racing 58.046 + 1.631 15. Alex Figge Pacific Coast Motorsports 58.281 + 1.866 16. Katherine Legge Dale Coyne Racing 58.470 + 2.055 17. Bruno Junqueira Dale Coyne Racing 58.649 + 2.234
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